Security threats loom in social network sites

CHICAGO: Sarah Brown is unusually cautious when it comes to social networking. The college sophomore does not have a MySpace page and, while she is on Facebook, she does everything she can to keep her page as private as she can.

"I don't want to have to worry about all the different online scandals and problems," says Brown, an education major at St. Joseph College in Connecticut in the United States. She would like to control her personal information and keep it out of the hands of identity thieves or snooping future employers.

"It's just common sense."